


“Growing Up Naberrie in the Shadow of Civil War: Pooja Naberrie”

by Polgarawolf



Series: Star Wars: You Became to Me [5]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Battle, Betrayal, Civil War, Expanded Universe Character(s), F/F, F/M, Family, Family Drama, Family Secrets, Fear, Handmaidens, Injury, Kidnapping Attempt, Leadership, Lies, Loss, Love, M/M, Masks, Mentors, Obi-Wan Kenobi equals unrequited love (unless you're Anakin Skywalker), Original Character Death(s), Original Character(s), Pain, Politics, Psychological Trauma, Sacrificial ethics, Secrets, Sith, Sith machinations, Slavery, The Naberrie Family, Training, War, dark side
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-09-27
Updated: 2007-09-27
Packaged: 2017-11-13 07:00:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,785
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/500761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polgarawolf/pseuds/Polgarawolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is fifty random (but essentially chronological, if with some overlap) moments from the life of Pooja Naberrie, youngest daughter of Sola Naberrie and Darred Janren and niece of Padmé Amidala, during the period of time covered by the Clone Wars (with some overlap, at the end, with events in my <i>Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith</i> trio). There is a story here – one small thread among the vast woven tapestry of life that is the living history of the galaxy, stretched out and twisted, knotted into the whole, curled down among the roots of time, connecting various moments together – but one must read between the lines to capture it. It is not precisely the truth, for the subtle story of these moments is sketched out here in words, and, in the sin of writing down a life, it inevitably changes the shape of things. But it is nevertheless a form of truth. (From a certain point of view . . . )</p>
            </blockquote>





	“Growing Up Naberrie in the Shadow of Civil War: Pooja Naberrie”

**Author's Note:**

> **Warning:** This story functions as a sort of compressed codex for Pooja’s life (pretty much up until _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ ), as she has been and is going to be written in my not even nearly complete AU **Star Wars** series **_You Became to Me_**. If anything doesn’t make sense, please feel free to ask!
> 
>  **Author’s Notes: 1.)** Again, for anyone interested, this not-quite-a-story is compatible with my SW AU trilogy _Thwarting the Revenge of the Sith_ , in my SW AU series **_You Became to Me_** , if you squint at a couple of things sideways and view a few others solely through the lens of Pooja Naberrie’s young (but sharply observant and quite intelligent) eyes. **2.)** Although this is technically modeled on a prompt set that I snatched up from somewhere or another on the LJ (I really don’t recall from where, though if anyone would like to set the record straight, I’ll add the info and a link to the LJ community in question here in my notes), it’s not actually meant to function as a response to whatever the challenge really is that’s associated with said prompt set on the LJ. I just used the prompts to give me a reason to string together a backstory of sorts for Pooja, adjusting for names/concepts that wouldn’t fit in the GFFA as I went and filling in every multiple of ten, which were originally all _writer’s choice_! **3.)** Readers interested in knowing who the physical models are for original characters (like the handmaiden Shmé) should please consult the latest versions of my posted lists of cast original and EU (Expanded Universe) characters and for handmaid(en)s and other important Nabooian characters, which are available on my LJ! For clarity’s sake, though, Feyd Janra can be pictured as a young (not quite nine, at his death) Kevin Zegers. **4.)** Pooja is approximately four and a third(ish) through not quite eight years of age during the Clone Wars era, people (she was born on Tapani Day, a little less than a year and a half after her elder sister and about four and a third years before the outbreak of the Clone Wars). She’s not nearly old enough to be seriously paired with anybody yet, folks. (Which isn’t to say that I don’t have plans for her, eventually – meaning, when she’s old enough that one can safely picture her as a young Morena Baccarin with dark brown rather than black hair instead of trying to mentally age the child actress – Hayley Mooy – briefly used for Pooja in AtoC and RotS. She’s much too young for any of that now, though, and, in any case, hasn’t met the fellow I have plans for her with just yet.) **5.)** Readers should keep in mind that words that appear Gaelic in nature or else modelled on Gaelic terms are meant as place-holders for non-Basic words that are uniquely characteristic of humans springing from one specific shared cultural background and that the particulars of the traditions in the various planetary systems colonized by humans from that original specific cultural group are as much dictated by my muse as by the scant information available about such peoples/worlds/traditions in the SW universe, okay? (In other words, read Gaelic-seeming words/phrases as Nabooian, please! If the meanings of any words/phrases aren't clear by context, ask, and I'll send you an English approximation!)
> 
>  **Story Notes:** **1.)** Since this is part of a larger on-going AU series that in some respects fairly closely mirrors or follows events of canon (up to a certain point, anyway), readers should please keep in mind that certain characters and events from the prequel movies/novelizations of the films and even events/places/people referenced in the EU or Expanded Universe may be mentioned or alluded to in this story. If anyone has any questions about whether someone or something is AU, canon, or EU canon, please feel free to ask! **2.)** Readers should probably be aware that I am roughly estimating (guestimating might be a better word) the original publication date for most of the character study pieces in the **_You Became to Me_** series (and indeed most of my stories, especially the ones written over a long period of time), based on when I roughed out notes for them in the story notebooks I carry everywhere with me and when I can recall having worked on certain groups of characters. The year is going to be accurate, but the month might be off and the day will almost certainly be randomly chosen, since the online account I had originally posted many of these stories to no longer exists. I tend to go back and edit things that are in series whenever I get the time or a new idea causes me to have to make room for something else plot-wise, and odds are good that a story could have been edited for typos as recently as the day of its posting here, but the original version will likely be much older and fairly close to the publication date that I attach to it, if anyone's curious!

**“Growing Up Naberrie in the Shadow of Civil War: Pooja Naberrie”**

 

 **01.) Hero:** _Mamaithryn_ Padmé is her hero, the person she wants to be when she grows up, and, as far as she’s concerned, nothing her mother says about how foolish is to want to emulate someone who’s given up so much (her freedom to have a family of her own, her safety, her family’s safety, etc.) for so little in return (a political career nearly everyone who truly loves her wishes she’d give up, if only for her own safety, according to Mother) will ever change that.

 **02.) Grave:** She’s visited the commemorative gravestones of her older sister and older brother many times, of course; yet, still, somehow, it wasn’t until Padmé took her to see the memorial for fallen handmaidens and she realized that this was the marker for all those wonderfully brave women she’d heard so many stories about that the reality of her family’s loss really struck home.

 **03.) Repent:** _Mamaithryn_ says that, if bad people repent of their evil ways and truly want to make good for their past ill deeds, then it’s the duty of good people to accept their penitence and give them another chance; all things considered, though, she rather thinks _Mamaithryn_ didn’t mean to include the Sith or mass murderers or Trade Federation goons or boys who put gum in one’s hair for no good reason whatsoever among those numbers!

 **04.) Change:** _Da’mâth_ Jobal says that Sola has changed so much over the past decade that sometimes she hardly recognizes her little girl anymore, and Pooja wishes that she could have known her mother before all those changes, because it sounds as if she used to be a lot happier (and a lot more approachable and less scarily intense) then than she is now.

 **05.) Power:** _Mamaithryn_ says a good leader should never crave power but rather simply be willing to accept the awesome responsibility of helping people (whether they always want that help or not), and Pooja thinks that this sounds like the key to avoiding all of the corruption that’s helped lead up to the civil war currently gripping the galaxy.

 **06.) Glory:** The glory of _Mamaithryn_ ’s smile is such that she’s quite sure it could light up the whole of the galaxy, and she’s sure that anyone who could ever see that smile and yet still want to harm her must be entirely without a heart or a soul or both.

 **07.) Bitter:** The rule is that medicine is bitter in order to make a body want to get better, rather than to crave a reason to remain ill enough to keep taking the medicine, and she supposes that this holds true for the war, too, since it’s supposed to be curing so many of the galaxy’s ills, but she still worries, sometimes, that the cure might end up being worse even than the disease.

 **08.) Smiles:** Her mother’s smiles are so rare and often so empty of real joy that it’s always a bit of a shock, to see her truly happy.

 **09.) Her:** Her sister, Ryoo, says that she’ll protect her, until she gets old enough to have handmaidens of her own, and, sure enough, no more boys at school bother her again, after Ryoo’s little “discussion” with Feyd Janra.

 **10.) Love:** _Mamaithryn_ Padmé and _Mamaithryn_ Sabé are in love, but _Mamaithryn_ Padmé and _Mamaithryn_ Sabé are also in love with Bendu Master Kenobi, and _Mamaithryn_ Padmé brought Obi-Wan’s Padawan, Anakin Skywalker, home with her to meet the family, and Pooja’s so confused by the sudden seeming preoccupation everybody has lately with _Mamaithryn_ Padmé’s love life that she swears she’ll either never fall in love at all or only ever love one person.

 **11.) Escape:** In the second year that the war has continued, a bounty hunter attacks their school and tries to kidnap her and Ryoo to use as leverage against _Mamaithryn_ Padmé, but they escape, with help from Feyd and his gang of followers, and their mother is so terrifyingly angry that she doesn’t even dare to think of protesting the orders that yank them out of the school, afterwards, and put them into a modified version of training with _Mamaithryn_ Padmé’s and Queen Jamillia’s handmaidens, instead, though she would’ve appreciated a chance to thank Feyd for his help and to apologize for thinking badly of him ever since the gum incident.

 **12.) Rose:** Feyd sends her a lovely bundle of sweetly scented pinkish-yellow roses with a note, telling her that he hopes that she’s safe and happy in her new school, and she’s happy to hear from him and to get such pretty flowers right up until the moment when Ryoo starts to tease her about her new boyfriend, at which point she resolves to send a coldly distant thank you card with whatever arrangement most closely approximates the message of thanks and utter disinterest in any kind of lasting tie to or relationship whatsoever with the recipient.

 **13.) Heart:** Ryoo says that, if she can reject Feyd’s offer of friendship so out of hand, then her heart is too cold for her to ever make as good a leader as _Mamaithryn_ Padmé, and she cries until she feels sick to her stomach and Ryoo finally says she’ll take it back if she figures out a way to make it clear to the boy that the first response Pooja sent to him was as much for Feyd’s safety and to please their mother as it was a real rejection of his friendship.

 **14.) Bleed:** She and Feyd start to trade comm calls, after her second (far lengthier and nicer and carefully arranged to be delivered in secret) note and floral arrangement, and, when he’s killed in a Separatist strike that just happens to target a marketplace in Theed that he and his family are shopping at, her heart hurts so much that it feels as if some physical missile has struck it hard enough to make it break open and bleed and she cries until she’s literally too exhausted for tears and is left feeling hollowed out and strangely light.

 **15.) Crimson:** She carefully pricks her left index finger with a thorn and uses her crimson blood to paint the petal edges of a yellow rose vibrantly scarlet, to create an appropriate ceremonial sacrifice for the funeral, and Ryoo holds on to her so tightly, after she’s cast her small (but symbolically huge) offering into the river, that she _almost_ feels better.

 **16.) Pain:** _Mamaithryn_ says that the pain will lessen, in time, and that she must not think ill of herself, when it eventually does begin to go away, since healing and even forgetting are natural processes of life and a large part of the Great Goddess’ way of helping her children survive loss; yet, though she’s sure that _Mamaithryn_ Padmé has lost enough people close to her to know what she’s talking about, nonetheless, she still hopes that she’ll never forget what Feyd looked like, even if the pain of his loss does eventually, inevitably fade away.

 **17.) Relax:** It is hard to relax and play and pretend to be a normal little girl, when so many bad things are happening all over the galaxy and the war seems likely to stretch on forever, but she and Ryoo have a rule about pretending like everything’s okay, when they’re home alone with Mother or when Daddy is home from work, so their parents won’t worry any more than they already do, and they were both already so very good at pretending, even before the war started, that it would probably be even more difficult to stop wearing their masks as it is to put them on.

 **18.) Lover:** She just can’t believe it, when Sola declares that _Mamaithryn_ Padmé took Anakin Skywalker (of all people!) as her lover, but _Mamaithryn_ doesn’t deny it (though her face goes very pale and unhappy), so she’s forced to accept the fact that maybe her _mamaithryn_ isn’t quite perfect after all.

 **19.) Without:** It’s a lot harder to pretend, at first, without that perfect ideal to strive to live up to, but Ryoo carefully explains that the fact that even _Mamaithryn_ Padmé is human enough to make mistakes and have regrets only makes the many good things she accomplished all that more special, and, after thinking it through for about a week, she finally has to agree that Ryoo has a good point and that she really should stop brooding about it.

 **20.) Human:** After Pooja’s had awhile to think about it, she realizes that it’s not so much that she’s disappointed to discover her aunt’s still human as it is that she’s afraid of the consequences of that humanity, since she’s seen lots of HoloNet footage and quite a few holos of Bendu Master Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker and she’s met them both (separately) and she knows how much they love each other, even if Obi-Wan seems kind of oblivious of the fact and for some unfathomable reason Anakin tries ridiculously hard to hide and even deny the fact.

 **21.) Child:** Some people treat her like a child, because she’s still physically so very small, and she hates it more than almost anything, because even though she knows that her body’s young, she’s equally aware that her mind isn’t, and, anyway, the times are such that people like her and Ryoo really can’t afford to be so selfish as to insist on lengthy childhoods, not when they’re so obviously going to be needed as adults in the political sphere so very soon.

 **22.) Banned:** Her mother tried to ban her from politics, once, but it only took one request from _Da’mâth_ Jobal and _Mamaithryn_ Padmé to put an end to that folly, a fact for which she is endlessly, eternally grateful, for she knows, absolutely, despite her relative youth, that this is her one true calling in life. 

**23.) Grin:** Anakin Skywalker grinned at her once and called her Padmé’s little shadow and her miniature self in training, and she’s cherished that memory close to her heart ever since.

 **24.) Pattern:** There’s a pattern in the attacks against _Mamaithryn_ Padmé and her handmaidens, she _knows_ that there is (is sure of it in a way that she can’t quite fully articulate, even to herself, except to say that she’s absolutely certain, but it seems to suggest that someone close to her aunt has a hand in the planning, and Pooja can’t quite bring herself to believe that, and so she keeps searching for whatever bit of information it is that she’s misinterpreted or overlooked, so sure is she that she must have made a mistake somehow in her interpretation of the apparent pattern.

 **25.) Imprint:** After the _Banriosa_ falls and Apailana is elected the new Queen of Naboo, Ryoo tells her that most sentient beings will imprint on a charismatic leader like young imprint on their mother, and that this is why she has to be absolutely sure she’s willing to give pretty much the whole of her life over to her career and the people she’s going to represent, if she wants to be a good leader; she’s had a long time to get used to the idea, though, so she’s isn’t afraid of the idea of such sacrifice, and refuses to be intimidated by her sister’s warnings.

 **26.) Cost:** The cost of this war in incalculable, to be perfectly honest, because of the amount of lives not only lost but ruined – lives for whom it is impossible to set an upper limit, in terms of value – and it becomes harder and harder, with each passing day, to believe that it’s all ever truly going to be worth it, in the end, no matter what they may end up gaining or how long the peace that might follow could end up lasting. 

**27.) Calculate:** When she told the handmaiden trainer who asked her that it was impossible to rank the acceptability of several different worst case scenarios, based on the amount of damage done and lives lost (as it is impossible to calculate the value of any given life), the woman at first looked angry, and then confused, and then stricken, as though she’d received an actual blow, and Pooja felt sorry for upsetting her, but then, the truth is the truth, and there’s really no use trying to dress it up or sugarcoat it, when it’s about something this important.

 **28.) Gasp:** She has time to register a gasp of shock and a glint of light off of metal where no metal should be, and then she’s being tackled to the ground by her escort and the world explodes into the insanity of battle.

 **29.) Benevolence:** Her father (who normally goes out of his way to avoid anything and everything even touching on politics) is so angry and frightened that he actually snarls something ugly about the fact that, while tolerance and benevolence are all well and good in a leader in times of peace, harsher measures and an unhealthy level of paranoia would better serve the people in times of war, and it’s far past time for the new Queen to realize this.

 **30.) Adrenaline:** She sits with Shmé for hours in the med-center, talking to her cheerfully and _willing_ her to come out of the coma the Healers put her in (to protect her brain from swelling, they said), and it isn’t until after she wakes up and smiles up at Pooja that the adrenaline wears off enough for the reality of what happened to really sink in, and she cries, then, with fierce desperateness, for the two handmaidens who died, getting her and Ryoo to safety.

 **31.) Angel:** She’s heard Padmé say that Anakin calls her his angel of mercy and deliverance, and she remembers the look of humbled joy on her _mamaithryn_ ’s face, in that moment, and so it warms her in a place she’d feared might never be warm again, to hear _Mamaithryn_ call her an angel of compassion.

 **32.) Teddy:** She’s not sure how _Aeshtaúr_ Bail knew she needed a cuddly toy to hug to herself at night, but she thanks him so many times for the present that he proceeds to sit her down and tell her the most fascinating story about a stuffed baby bantha that he had, as a child, who helped him keep the nightmares away.

 **33.) Failure:** This war started as a failure of diplomacy, but so much blood has been shed on both sides that it’s long since become personal, and she’s starting to fear that it’s just vengeance and vendetta for wrongs both real and imagined on both sides that are fueling the fighting now.

 **34.) Sigh:** _Athro_ Kenobi told Padmé once that a good long sigh is an excellent means of letting go of all of one’s worries and doubts and misfortunes, and she’s taken to sighing so often, since _Mamaithryn_ shared that story, that her father actually notices and asks her what’s wrong.

 **35.) Overdose:** Her explanation for her sighing was apparently an overdose of reality, because Daddy gives her that silly speech again about not worrying and letting the grown-ups handle things, and she’s so insulted by the notion that she has to bite her tongue until it bleeds, to keep from pointing out that the adults haven’t exactly done a bang-up job of seeing to much of _anything_ related to the causes behind the war, yet. 

**36.) Saviour:** Ryoo is her guardian and protector and savior all rolled up into one, just like the handmaidens are for the Queen and for _Mamaithryn_ Padmé, and it’s no surprise to her at all, when Ryoo rescues her from Daddy’s well-intentioned but foolish protectiveness, by quietly pointing out that they can’t afford to ignore what’s going on around them – not if they want to live long enough to actually become adults – and reminding him that _Da’mâth_ Jobal and _Mamaithryn_ Padmé got them into the handmaiden training modules for several good reasons, including the fact that they patently needed to be able to defend themselves, in such dangerous times, shutting his mouth on any protest he might’ve made by adding that knowledge is a resource they cannot afford to ignore any more than Padmé or Queen Apailana might.

 **37.) Epitome:** Obi-Wan Kenobi is the living epitome of everything good about the Jedi (and of everything evil that the Order inflicts upon its own, according to _Mamaithryn_ Padmé and _Mamaithryn_ Sabé and even _Mamaithryn_ Dormé, when she forgets her shyness about the Bendu Master enough to speak her mind), and Pooja rather suspects that he’s the one who’s the living avatar of the Force spoken of in prophecies as the Chosen One, but she doesn’t want to hurt Knight Skywalker’s feelings any, and so she keeps that opinion strictly to herself (though she rather thinks that Ryoo shares her opinion).

 **38.) Syringe:** The syringe of knock-out drugs the bounty hunter’s carrying frightens her more than his actual weapons, and she’s rarely been so relieved as she is at the moment Shmé breaks cover to shoot the man’s hand – needle and drugs and all – into a smoking mass of exploded particulate matter.

 **39.) Mask:** She’s been working hard on her leader’s mask and voice, as Apailana’s said she must, and so she’s able to remain utterly calm in her report on the “incident” to their father, which fools him into believing that they were in no real threat of harm this time and saves her and Ryoo both another painful round of counterproductive good intentions.

 **40.) Macabre:** It’s not so much that she really minds the various attempts on her and Ryoo – after all, as macabre as it might seem to others, the truth is that, given how dangerous she knows the realm of politics can be, she thinks it pragmatic to regard most of the various dangers and losses and pain she’s experienced because of the war as training for later on in life, after her political career’s had a chance to really blossom – so much as it quite simply deeply offends her that anyone would stoop so low as to think to use _Mamaithryn_ ’s nieces against her, as these people so obviously keep intending to try to do. 

**41.) Angst:** Every now and again, she finds herself angsting about being too young to be able to do more than she already is to help, but she almost always manages to bring herself around by reminding herself (as Ryoo has done for her, more than once) that the galaxy will need good, strong, just leaders, post-war, just as much if not even more so than it does now.

 **42.) Loss:** She considers herself no stranger to loss, so she fails to understand how anyone in the media (even somewhere as far removed from Naboo as Coruscant and wherever the brix it is that the Separatists have currently made their secret headquarters) could believe her or her family insulated from the war and cozened and spoiled by the wealth and power and influence afforded to them by their family name.

 **43.) Wrapper:** She’s enough of a child still to buy sweets based on the wrappers, and the obvious pleasure that her father takes in knowing she still collects such things eases the slight twinges of conscience she occasionally has over the silliness inherent in saving chocolate wrappers simply because they have pictures of the Team on them.

 **44.) Christmas:** The galaxy usually parties like mad during Winter Fete, especially on the actual last day of the year, but the Nabooians tend to celebrate the coming of spring and summer instead, since those seasons are a more obvious natural reflection of the Great Lady’s love of life and growth and light, and there is something hideously unnatural about the fact that the war technically began on one of their most holy days, something that makes her wonder, sometimes, if someone, somewhere, didn’t deliberately plan for the war to start on that particular day . . . 

**45.) Flicker:** The thought that it might actually be better for everyone, if the Supreme Chancellor is killed and the Jedi and certain loyally democratic elements of the Senate (led by _Mamaithryn_ Padmé and _Aeshtaúr_ Bail, of course) are forced to take over, flickers though her mind first, on hearing the news, and so she’s oddly disappointed to learn that the Team is already _en route_ for a rescue attempt, since she’s quite certain that they’re sure to succeed in rescuing Palpatine.

 **46.) Glimmer:** The glimmer of a thought (always violently suppressed and denied) that there might be something seriously wrong with their mother – something so unspeakably bad that it could explain that pattern of attacks on _Mamaithryn_ and the Queen(s) that can’t be made to come clear without the acknowledgment of an extremely highly placed (and, thus, trusted and even loved) traitor – explodes into harshly unforgiving illumination, when their mother has a fit in the midst of lunch and begins screaming for the loss of her promised chance at vengeance against her sister.

 **47.) Bells:** They have a tradition of hanging bells and various objects that chime sweetly over the cradles of newborns and the beds of the sickly, to soothe the thoughts and dreams of the sleeping and to ward off evil spirits with the sweetness of the music made, thus; she’s fairly certain that it would take more bells and more music than the whole of Naboo holds, though, to bring their mother anything like true calm or peace.

 **48.) Voice:** The voice is a strange mixture of Mother’s intonations and _Mamaithryn_ ’s warm, loving cadences, and she listens with everything in her, committing not only the scene and the words spoken but the whole of the experience to her formidable memory, determined to never forget a thing and, thus, never to lose the final moments of her heart’s true mother with her.

 **49.) Listen:** When she listens with her heart, she knows _Mamaithryn_ has to go, and so she manages not to cry, even though she desperately wants her to stay.

 **50.) Miracle:** When Obi-Wan and Anakin present the miracle of the twins to her, she knows she’ll happily spend the whole of her life striving to make the galaxy safe for them, and the love and fierce protectiveness that kindles in her heart and spirit is (all unknown to her) precisely the maternal fire meant to burn in the Great Lady’s elected avatar, proving her ultimate readiness and worthiness for the kind of role she wishes to spend the rest of her life in pursuit of . . .


End file.
